218 quotes
The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness and holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold on to.
The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements (1951)
It is the malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn.
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)
When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
It almost seems that nobody can hate America as much as native Americans.
The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness.
Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)
A free society is as much a threat to the intellectual's sense of worth as an automated economy is to the workingman's sense of worth. Any social order that can function with a minimum of leadership will be anathema to the intellectual.
The Ordeal of Change (1963)
It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible. What we know as blind faith is sustained by innumerable unbeliefs.
You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others — that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness.
Working and Thinking on the Waterfront (1969)
A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
There is no reason why the profoundest thoughts should not make easy and exciting reading. A profound thought is an exciting thing — as exciting as a detective's deductions or hunches. The simpler the words in which a thought is expressed the more stimulating its effect.
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)
They want power, lordship, and opportunities for imposing action.
The Temper of Our Time (1967)
The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.
The Temper of Our Time (1967)
Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership. There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.
The True Believer (1951)
Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.
The Temper of Our Time (1967)
What counts most is holding on.
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)
By circumstance and perhaps also by inclination, I think in complete intellectual isolation. To expect others to help me think seems to me almost like expecting them to help me digest my food.
Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook (2005)
There is fear and intolerance in pride; it is sensitive and uncompromising. The less promise and potency in the self, the more imperative is the need for pride. The core of pride is self-rejection.
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness.
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
We usually see only the things we are looking for — so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
The pleasure we derive from doing favors is partly in the feeling it gives us that we are not altogether worthless.
The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)